Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

[eagle-rock08]

Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

The heading says what I feel.

I've posted on the salary cap a few times.  But this I feel gives my argument more legs.

Problems with the cap are:

Too easy to rort.

Too hard to police.

Too damaging when it is finally found out.

Too much open to interpretation.

Possible solutions:

Keep it and this will raise its ugly head again in a few years.

Remove it and let the market determine the survivors.

Replace it with a fully transparent points system that is easy to monitor and cheaper to operate.

 

[Duff]

Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

What do mean by points system?

 

[Chip and Chase]

Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

It's a salary cap by another name, just as difficult to police IMO.

 

[The Gronk]

Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

I think it should be kept but made bigger and more flexible so that there is no incentive to try to go around it.  

Take it from 4.1mill to 5 mill (probably need an increase in the nrl grants to clubs as well - need new tv deal to afford this)

Include concessions for locally developed juniors coming through the ranks

Include concessions for players who have been at a club for a long time.  

Give the ability to raise and lower the cap for each club under special circumstances - ie being in a developing market might be a reason for a cap raise (just like the afl does), breaches in past years a reason for it being lowered.  

 

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Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

Make teh players take some responsibility. The players should have to declare to the NRL what they are being paid and all their deals etc.

If they or their manager/accountant are found to have knowingly lied or recieved otehr payments then they should get bans as well.

Add in more layers of who would need to be lying for these things to happen.

 

[Chip and Chase]

Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

I think the salary cap is $4.7mil now, of which the NRL grants about $3.5mil per club. I think it goes without saying that once News Ltd remove their grubby little mitts from the running of the game then the broadcast rights will be sold at proper market value, which should mean some extra cash to go around to the clubs. Even if the cap increases by $0.5-1mil a year on the back of an increased grant from the "NRL" then that is 2 or 3 quality players that each side could afford. Would stop a bit of the player drain to ESL and other codes. The "NRL" only need to negotiate about a 15% increase on the existing broadcast rights deal to fund it. 

 

[eagle-rock08]

Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

What do mean by points system?

To put it succinctly - each player is rated or 'pointed' by the NRL.  The top squad of 25 players point value couldn't exceed a certain number of points.  There could be point increases for rep appearances and point reductions for junior development or time served at the club etc.

The richer clubs would have obviously first pick but they couldn't buy the premiership as they couldn't have more pointed players than allowed.

This would reward the efficient clubs but still support the weaker clubs.

Advantages -

totally transparent each player pointed at the start of the season and a club couldn't sign someone if the total points are exceeded.

a human resource problem rather than a payment problem

Alternatively:

Use a point system in conjunction with a salary cap.  Then there would be two controls on clubs.

 

[eagle-rock08]

Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

It's a salary cap by another name, just as difficult to police IMO.

Not difficult to police as the NRL would 'point' a player.  Top 25 player squad equals a ceiling of points.  Clear not open to negotiaiton and transparent.

 

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Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

But how do three year contracts work?

You could have players on contracts the improve, get rated higher and then you are over without doing anything wrong!

 

[eagle-rock08]

Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

Make the players take some responsibility. The players should have to declare to the NRL what they are being paid and all their deals etc.

If they or their manager/accountant are found to have knowingly lied or received other payments then they should get bans as well.

Add in more layers of who would need to be lying for these things to happen.

ads - very hard to make the players take responsibility.  They (in theory) do not know who gets paid what.  They just know (in theory) what they are being paid.

The next problem is spouses, girl Friends, parents children etc all can be paid for doing 'jobs' at the club.  Technically not lying the player gets his set amount but his wife gets $200 k for being a club receptionist to use an outlandish example.

As for the poor old accountant they do not audit income.  That is the ATO's job.  They just complete tax returns based on information available and the client is responsible for it correctness.

 

[eagle-rock08]

Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

But how do three year contracts work?

You could have players on contracts the improve, get rated higher and then you are over without doing anything wrong!

Good point - what do the clubs do now if they sign a bloke for three years and a new hot talent comes along?  They make a decision to either sell the current player (releasing him) and buying the new bloke.  Or they stick with their current player.

What I am suggesting would improve the home-grown bloke who has shown club loyalty by offering a point reduction if he has spent several years at the club.

No system is perfect but I feel in my mind that a point system would be bette than what we have now.

The advantage would be total transperency no 'under the table' approaches.

 

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Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

[quote author=ads link=topic=183114.msg260319#msg260319 date=1271983356]
Make the players take some responsibility. The players should have to declare to the NRL what they are being paid and all their deals etc.

If they or their manager/accountant are found to have knowingly lied or received other payments then they should get bans as well.

Add in more layers of who would need to be lying for these things to happen.

ads - very hard to make the players take responsibility.  They (in theory) do not know who gets paid what.  They just know (in theory) what they are being paid.

The next problem is spouses, girl Friends, parents children etc all can be paid for doing 'jobs' at the club.  Technically not lying the player gets his set amount but his wife gets $200 k for being a club receptionist to use an outlandish example.

As for the poor old accountant they do not audit income.  That is the ATO's job.  They just complete tax returns based on information available and the client is responsible for it correctness.
[/quote]

Yeah, I only mean teh players to have a responsibility to declare everything they are getting paid to the NRL.

I.e. the club says to the NRL we pay each player this and this etc and our total bill is X.
each player says to the NRL I get paid this.

The NRL can then see if they add up. If there is rorting of the cap, then the players who told the NRL they were getting X but really Y should be held accountable too. But not for the overall cap itself. I.e. the players don't manage the cap, just must declare everything they get.

 

[Duff]

Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

It's hard to write long emails at work but I really think that poits system would be terrible. Very artificial.

Basically, Billy Slater would be swapped to Cronulla just to even things out. Josh Perry & Kitey would be handed to Newcastle & so on until every team in the comp is effectively the same.

 

[eagle-rock08]

Re: Salary Cap Should Go & Be Replaced By A Point System

It's hard to write long emails at work but I really think that points system would be terrible. Very artificial.

Basically, Billy Slater would be swapped to Cronulla just to even things out. Josh Perry & Kitey would be handed to Newcastle & so on until every team in the comp is effectively the same.

Duff I tend to agree with you.  Overall it is doing the same as the salary c(r)ap.  But at least it is totally see through.  No hiding payments. No under the table deals.  And no hoping against hope that our team may not eventually get caught up in it.  (I think Manly are clean but there is still a little doubt in my mind that if one does it others may follow.) The only reason it was found was allegedly by accident.

However, part of my point system would reward home grown talent and give reductions for length of service.  Kite has been here for four or five years.  Perry has not.  Kite's point rating would by definition be lower than Perry's.

Using Steve Matai as an example - he would be a lower point level to Manly (because we found him and developed him) but if someone went out and bought him on the open market, he'd be very highly pointed as an international representative.

Using another example - Billy Slater would be a lower point level for Melbourne than for Cronulla as he was bought and developed by Melbourne.

There are a lot of issues that would need to be worked out.  No system is perfect but anything has to be better than what we have at the moment.

I think an astute investor would at the start of each season from now on put a lazy C note on last two year's grandinalists to win the spoon.  Knowing that a salary cap wrought may be in the offing.  You'd only have to be right once a decade to get your money back with a bonus.  I cite 2002 and now 2010.

Put it simply - it is not working.